Incumbent Frank Roberts held off a challenge by fellow council member and political rival Michael Singer in Tuesday's election to win a second two-year term as mayor of this high-desert city. With unofficial tallies showing 22.4% of registered voters casting ballots, Lancaster residents struck a blow for the status quo, electing two candidates who are unlikely to change the current balance of power on the council.

Skimpy early returns in Tuesday's election gave a substantial lead to a bond measure aimed at raising $29 million to give Lancaster elementary schools a face-lift. With only absentee ballots counted, the bond measure was drawing a yes vote of more than 72%. Approval of the measure would qualify the district for matching state funds, in keeping with last November's Proposition 1A state bond measure.

Rejecting arguments that moving the date of an upcoming municipal election could save taxpayers about $100,000, the Lancaster City Council voted Tuesday not to make changes in the election schedule. The three council members who opposed a proposal to move the election--from April, 1996, to Novemebr of this year--argued that the cost savings were uncertain. And besides, they said they didn't want to cut short their terms.

Incumbent Frank Roberts held off a challenge by fellow council member and political rival Michael Singer in Tuesday's election to win a second two-year term as mayor of this high-desert city. With unofficial tallies showing 22.4% of registered voters casting ballots, Lancaster residents struck a blow for the status quo, electing two candidates who are unlikely to change the current balance of power on the council.

In the wake of a recall campaign, Lancaster City Council members have abandoned their bid to reschedule next year's city election and thereby extend their terms by 11 months. Council members took the action unanimously Tuesday night, at least partly in an attempt to neutralize one of the issues touted by a group seeking a special election to remove three city leaders. "This is a very misunderstood issue," said Councilman George Runner, one of the targets of the recall.

The Lancaster city clerk's office has asked the Los Angeles County district attorney's office to review the voter registration records of about a dozen people who may have used phony addresses to qualify to vote in next week's election, city officials said. City Clerk Barbara Howard, who began a review on Wednesday, became suspicious when she recognized at least two of the addresses used, said Nancy Walker, a city spokeswoman.

The Lancaster City Council has rejected a proposal by newly elected Councilman George Runner to have voters directly pick the city's mayor, preferring instead to automatically rotate the job each year among council members. No other council member supported Runner's plan for a ballot measure asking whether the mayor should be elected directly by the voters. Instead, the council voted 4 to 1 Monday night, with Runner dissenting, to formalize its present policy of rotating the job.

Lancaster's major homeowners group Monday endorsed two of its own officers--county Fire Department Capt. Mike Singer and civic worker Deborah Shelton--from a field of 12 candidates seeking a pair of City Council seats in the April 14 election. Singer and Shelton will "bring an appropriate balance" to a council that has often favored developers' interests at the expense of homeowners' concerns, said Richard Wood, president of the Lancaster Coalition of Neighborhood Organizations.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to allow Lancaster to place a proposal for a citywide flood-control district on the June 2 ballot. The district proposal will be one of two drainage options on the ballot in Lancaster. The other will be a county advisory measure that will ask Antelope Valley residents whether they want to become part of the county flood-control district or form a separate, valleywide district.

Lancaster Councilman William Pursley said Wednesday he will run for a second term in next April's election even though he is the subject of continuing conflict-of-interest investigations by the state Fair Political Practices Commission and Los Angeles County district attorney.

Voters in this high-desert city must decide Tuesday whether to remake almost their entire city government or to endorse the status quo. Candidates aligned in two camps with widely divergent views over how to handle the city's explosive growth--whether to encourage or restrain it--are contesting four of the five council seats, including the mayor's position.

Two veterans of north Los Angeles County politics won a narrow victory in Santa Clarita's City Council contests, and a college dean was elected Lancaster's first mayor, unofficial tallies showed Wednesday. Environmentalist Jill Klajic was the top vote-getter in Santa Clarita with 3,508 votes, about 17.2% of the vote. The victory was particularly sweet for Klajic, who in 1994 lost her bid for reelection to the council by only 15 votes.

April 10, 1996 | DANICA KIRKA SHARON MOESER and DAVID COLKER, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Slow-growth proponent Jill Klajic made a political comeback in the Santa Clarita Ctiy Council race Tuesday, winning the seat she lost by only 15 votes in the 1994 election. Meanwhile, in Lancaster, college dean Frank Roberts became the first mayor of the city voted into office by the public. In Santa Clarita, Klajic saw her victory as a clear one for environmentalists.

Residents of this city will decide in November whether they want to directly elect their mayors. Currently, the post of mayor is rotated annually among the five Lancaster City Council members. But Monday night, by a 3-2 vote, the council decided to put the matter before the voters. "Let's just put it in their hands and let them decide," said Councilman George Runner.

Rejecting arguments that moving the date of an upcoming municipal election could save taxpayers about $100,000, the Lancaster City Council voted Tuesday not to make changes in the election schedule. The three council members who opposed a proposal to move the election--from April, 1996, to Novemebr of this year--argued that the cost savings were uncertain. And besides, they said they didn't want to cut short their terms.

In the wake of a recall campaign, Lancaster City Council members have abandoned their bid to reschedule next year's city election and thereby extend their terms by 11 months. Council members took the action unanimously Tuesday night, at least partly in an attempt to neutralize one of the issues touted by a group seeking a special election to remove three city leaders. "This is a very misunderstood issue," said Councilman George Runner, one of the targets of the recall.

The Lancaster City Council has given tentative approval to a ballot measure that would ask voters if they want to elect a mayor instead of having council members rotate the job among themselves. The 3-2 vote Monday night followed weeks of bickering on the subject by council members. The issue arose because the council this year again bypassed giving the largely ceremonial job to Councilman George Theophanis, who is considered disruptive by a majority of the council.

Antelope Valley residents will face continued danger from flooding for years to come because voters opted to create their own flood-control agency and defeated a Lancaster flood-control tax measure, officials said Wednesday. The defeat of the Lancaster measure in Tuesday's election means that the city will not get millions of extra dollars each year to build more flood-control projects.

Citing a calendar conflict posed by California's new presidential primary date in 1996, the City Council has moved its next municipal election to the following year. By moving the next city election to March 4, 1997, current council members whose terms were scheduled to expire in April, 1996, will serve an additional 11 months. The election change was approved unanimously by the council Monday night.

The days of virtual consensus among City Council members here may be over with the election of two newcomers who often have been critical of past council actions. Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Michael Singer and homeowner activist Deborah Shelton were elected Tuesday along with one incumbent, the Rev. Henry Hearns, to fill the three available seats. In an election with 29,222 votes cast, Singer garnered 5,421 votes; Hearns, 3,993, and Shelton, 3,751.